--eoo__—  - ——_

 

198 UNCLE TOM’S CABIN; OR,

‘| think that’s a barbarous thing,” said Miss Ophelia, “ but I
don’t think you are all barbarians.” “

“‘ Well, now,” said Marie, “ I know it’s impossible to get along
with some of these creatures. They are so bad they ought not to
live. I don’t feel a particle of sympathy for such cases. If they'd
only behave themseives, it would not happen.”

“ But, mamma,” said Eva, “ the poor creature was unhappy ;
that’s what made her drink.”

“ Oh, fiddlestick ! as if that were any excuse! I’m unhappy,
very often. I presume,” she said pensively, ‘that I’ve had
greater trials than ever she had. It’s just because they are so
bad. There’s some of them that you cannot break in by any kind
of severity. I remember father had a man that was so lazy he
would run away just to get rid of work, and lie round in the
swamps, stealing and doing all sorts of horrid things. That man
was caught and whipped, time and again, and it never did him
any good; and the last time he crawled off, though he couldn't
but just go, and died in the swamp. There was no sort of reason
for it, for father's hands were always treated kindly.”

“‘ ] broke a fellow in, once,” said St. Clare, “that all the over-
seers and masters had tried their hands on in vain.”

“You!” said Marie; “well, I’d be glad to know when you
ever did anything of the sort.”

‘* Well, he was a powerful, gigantic fellow—a native-born Afri-
can; and he appeared to have the rude instinct of freedom in him
to an uncommon degree. He was a regular African lion. They
called him Scipio. Nobody could do anything with him; and he
was sold round from overseer to overseer, till at last Alfred bought
him, because he thought he could manage him. Well, one day he
knocked down the overseer, and was fairly off into the swamps.
I was ona visit to Alf’s plantation, for it was after we had dis-
solved partnership. Alfred was greatly exasperated, but I told
him that it was his own fault, and laid him any wager that I
could break the man ; and finally it was agreed that, if I caught
him, I should have him to experiment on. So they mustered out
a party of some six or seven, with guns and dogs, for the hunt.
People, you know, can get up just as much enthusiasm in hunting
a man as a deer, if it is only customary; in fact, I got a little
excited myself, though I had only put in as a sort of mediator, in
case he was caught. |

‘Well, the dogs bayed and howled, and we rode and scam-
pered, and finally we started him. He ran and bounded like a
buck, and kept us well in the rear for some time; but at last he
got caught in an impenetrable thicket of cane; then he turned to
bay, and I tell you he fought the dogs right gallantly. He dashed
them to right and left, and actually killed three of them with only
his naked fists, when a shot from a gun brought him down, and
he fell, wounded and bleeding, almost at my feet. ‘The poor